In the Heat of the Night
by OliveFan
Summary: During his vacation Troy makes some realizations about his life and decides to make some changes. This leads to him meeting up with old friends and questioning everything in his life.
1. In the Heat of the Night

Author's Note: I was driving home from work today when my iPod flicked over to Pat Benatar's "In the Heat of the Night". I had listened to it before, I love the song, but for some reason my mind started thinking about what things would be like if Troy was the one who she was singing about. And so as soon as I got home I started writing. Oddly while writing the only high school musical songs that played on the randomly shuffled playlist were "When There Was Me And You" and "Gotta Go My Own Way".

Disclaimer: I don't own High School Musical, or In the Heat of the Night.

* * *

The small motel room in middle-of-nowhere Nevada was dimly lit in red light from the digital clock on the dresser. The light gave everything a more ominous look, like something out of a bad 1970's horror flick. On top of the light there was a constant hum from the air conditioner that was apparently running. It's efforts seemed wasted, though, as the temperature in the room was surely hot enough to be used as an oven. The light, the sound, and the heat were three of the four reasons that Troy Bolton could not sleep. The fourth reason was laying next to him in his bed, her blonde hair sticking to everything.

After staring at the ceiling for what felt like forever Troy climbed out of bed and got dressed. He knew there was no way that he would ever get to sleep in that tiny room with all of it's annoyances. Once dressed he stood next to the night table, where a pad of paper and a pen sat, contemplating leaving his wife of two years a note explaining where he went. With a quick glance at the clock Troy discovered that it was 2:37. He figured that he would have plenty of time to do whatever it was that he needed to before Sharpay would awake. Without even a look at his wife Troy slipped out the door into the quiet hallway.

Whatever city he was in was clearly riding on the fame of the nearby Las Vegas. Bright neon lights cast their light out over an empty street, each one proclaiming that it's establishment was still open, and that they clearly had the best of something. Troy made sure to read each and every one, looking for the perfect place to stop and try and get over whatever he was feeling. Somehow, though, he knew that the best new england clam chowder in all of Nevada was not the way. He wandered for what seemed like hours, but a glance at his watch told him was only 20 minutes, before he found a place that might work.

It was a sports bar, or at least that's what Troy figured. The neon signs proclaimed 72 different flavours of chicken wings, served until 5 in the morning, and that there was 9 pool tables. The inside of the bar was not what Troy had been expecting. What Troy could see through the thick blanket of cigarette smoke was nothing like the bars that Sharpay forced him to go to back home. The pool tables were in a poor state of disrepair, most of them had tears all over the felt. Apparently their poor state meant nothing, as all 9 tables were occupied by people. Noticing that most of the booths were either occupied or dirty Troy chose to sit at the bar. He took the only open seat, the man to his right was passed out on the bar and the woman to his left was deep in conversation with the man next to her. He ordered a Jack and Coke before turning his attention to the tiny TV showing sports highlights from the day before.

Much to his dismay the highlights cut to a commercial for the latest CD release from Gabriella Montez. Troy turned his attention away from the TV to his drink, which he quickly drank and ordered another. Gabriella was the first girl, possibly the only girl, that he ever loved. He believed that they would be together forever and that nothing could take them apart. But Gabriella moved away right after graduation. On her first day at East High Gabriella's mother told her that they couldn't be moved again until after she graduated. Stupidly, the couple assumed that meant that she would never move again. They found out a month before grad that she would be moving away, and the two decided that long distance never worked. They spent every minute they could together, but when the day came for Gabriella to move they said goodbye. Troy hadn't talked to her since.

After finishing his second drink Troy turned to look back at the TV. He decided that Gabriella's latest CD would be better than the interview with Zeke Baylor, a man that he hadn't talked to in almost four years. He and Zeke had been close all through high school. They played basketball together and hung out almost every weekend. There was only one thing that Zeke loved more than basketball and cooking, and that was Sharpay Evans - the woman who would one day become Sharpay Bolton. The first time that Troy and Sharpay kissed they were interrupted by Zeke. 'I thought you were my friend," was what Zeke told him that night, it was the last thing Zeke ever said to him.

"Fuck you too, Baylor," Troy said into his drink, "you can have her if you want."

"Did you just swear at Zeke Baylor?" the very drunk woman next to him asked. The man that she had been talking to had left.

"Yeah," he replied bitterly.

"Why would you swear at a guy you don't know?" She placed her hand on Troy's shoulder as she talked to him.

"I do know him," he told her, the anger starting to build in his voice, "at least I thought I did. Why couldn't he be happy for me? Why couldn't he understand that I loved her as much as he did!?"

"You know Zeke Baylor?" the woman asked Troy, she leaned down enough for Troy to see the brown roots of her bleached hair, and to see straight down her top.

"He didn't even come to my wedding!" Troy slammed his fist on the bar, "He never even responded to the invite! We were best friends!"

"You're best friends with Zeke Baylor?" she slurred.

"I was," Troy said before he put his hands to his face, "I still would be if it wasn't for my wife," he could feel the cold metal of his wedding ring against his cheek. "I may have had a chance to get back together with Gabby. I wouldn't have had to find out about her wedding to some movie star by hearing about it from some blonde idiot on entertainment tonight, I would've been there."

"Let me get this straight," the blonde said as she tried to work everything out in her mind, "you were best friends with Zeke Baylor and you dated Gabriella Montez?"

"Yeah," Troy sighed. He quickly drank the last of his fifth Jack and Coke and ordered another.

"Do you want to go back to my place?" the drunk woman asked him, lust in her eyes. Troy stared back at her. He didn't want to cheat on his wife, but he had just realized that earlier he had said that he HAD loved Sharpay as much as Zeke. He wasn't sure if he still loved her or not. He assumed that there would be a bit of a walk back to the blonde's house and that he had some time to figure it out. He nodded and drank the drink that had just been put down in front of him. He gave the bartender enough money to cover his tab and followed the woman to the door.

Troy walked beside the woman who's name he didn't know in complete silence. She was trying to ask him things about Zeke and Gabriella but he was ignoring her. Troy couldn't help but think about his former best friend and the love of his life. Would things really have turned out better if Troy had never kissed Sharpay? Would Zeke and him still be friends? Would Zeke still be a basketball star? And would Gabriella still have her career? Troy didn't know if he would've been supportive of her trying. He would've been there for her, he would've helped her with anything that she wanted, but would he have been enough to keep her going? Could he be there after every turn down, after everytime some executive told her that she wasn't good enough?

"We're here!" The blonde stated as they came up to an apartment complex. 'The Eagles' was written in red neon lights on the front of the building. Under the name 3 eagle silhouttes were harshly backlit, also in red. Troy couldn't take his eyes off the birds as the woman grabbed his hand and dragged him towards the door. She dragged him through a long empty hallway and up a flight of stairs. She paused on the second floor in front of the door marked 14. Troy would have laughed had the situation been a bit different.

The woman unlocked the door and stepped in, flicking on the lights. The bright white was enough to cause Troy to squint as he stood in the hallway. He went to take a step, but couldn't. The woman had dissapeared somewhere into the apartment, all Troy could see was a blinding white light. He looked into the light, and as his eyes slowly adjusted he could start to make out the silhoutte of a bird, one of the ones from the sign, just infront of the window. He took a deep breath, contemplating his options. He could step into the room and cheat on his wife whom he didn't love, or he could turn away and head back to the hotel and try and convince himself that he loved her on the long walk back.

"You gonna come in?" the woman asked as she stepped into Troy's field of view. She had stripped down to her undewear, and was doing her best to look sexy. In her drunken state, though, she wasn't pulling it off all that well. Troy opened his mouth to say something, but wasn't sure what he wanted to say, so he quickly closed it. "Well, are you gonna come in?" she asked him again.

All Troy could hear was the sound of his footsteps as he made his way back to his motel room. The door creaked slightly as he opened it and stepping into the sweltering hot room. The air conditioner was still humming along, and the clock was still casting an odd red light over the room. It was now 5:48, Troy knew that Sharpay had set the alarm for 6, looking to get an early start on the rest of their trip. He glanced at the woman that he now knew he didn't love. He quickly and silently undressed and slipped under the one light sheet that she had left on the bed. He turned his head to look at her.

"I hate you," he whispered before turning his head away from her.


	2. I Need a Lover

I Need A Lover

Troy threw his jacket onto the bright pink couch in his living room. Despite the fact that Troy wanted to make it on his own, Sharpay's parents had bought them a house as a wedding gift, and the bride's happy parents also let Sharpay furnish it at their expense. The result was a house that would've fit perfectly in some little girls imagination. Troy loathed it, but he had smiled when Sharpay was dragging him from furniture store to furniture store looking for the perfect lime green armchair. At the time he had thought that you had to make sacrifices for love.

A quick glance at the bright orange clock let him know that it was well past eleven, Sharpay would be asleep. He hadn't realized that he had been at the office for so long. Mr. Evans had set him up with a cushy desk job working for one of his companies, it was a job that Troy couldn't stand. He spent eight hours a day transferring numbers from one program to another. Today Troy especially hated the job, as he had to stay until eleven to try and figure out why the numbers weren't adding up. It was anything but his dream job.

With a heavy sigh Troy sat down next to his jacket on the couch and turned on the TV. Work had been exhausting, but Troy was wide awake. He was absent mindedly channel surfing when something caught his attention. It was some late night talk show, which was something that Troy wouldn't normally watch, but sitting on the couch talking to the host was none other than Gabriella Montez.

"So, Gabriella," the host said, "is it true that you went to high school with Zeke Baylor?"

"Yeah," Gabriella replied with a smile. It was a smile that Troy hadn't seen in years, he avoided watching her interviews. Now, though, he had put the remote down and was watching intently. "Me and Zeke were friends in high school. The East High class of '08 was one to watch out for."

"Two super stars in on graduating class is pretty big," the host said with a fake smile.

"Not just two," Gabriella replied with a laugh.

"Who else?"

"Well, my good friend and song writer Kelsi Nielson was also in our class. And so was her husband." Gabriella said with a small smile. Troy had missed her smile so much, and he hadn't realized it until that point in time.

"Jason Cross?" the host asked her, "the director?"

"The one and only. I was really close with them in high school. There was a group of about nine or ten of us that hung out all the time."

"Who else? I'm sure they'd love to hear their names on TV and know that you still remember them."

"Okay," Gabriella giggled a bit. That too was something that Troy missed. Sharpay never giggled. "There was my best friend Taylor McKessie and her boyfriend Chad Danforth, last I heard they were engaged. Then there was my friend Martha Cox, who was always my partner in bio and I was on the scholastic decathalon team with her."

"You were on a scholastic Decathalon team?" the host interrupted.

"Yeah, school is cool!" Gabriella replied with a huge - and fake - grin. She laughed a bit before she continued, "I did a little bit of everything in high school. I was in a school play. I beat out a girl that had been in the lead since kindergarten. After she tried to steal my boyfriend over the summer we became friends, though. It's weird, I know, but I was fairly close with her brother."

"What's the name of this girl that tried to steal your bofriend?" the host probed her for more information.

"Sharpay Evans, and her brother was Ryan Evans."

"And your boyfriend?" he asked her with a sly smile. Troy waited expectantly. Gabriella's face had lit up at the mention of high school. Maybe she missed it just as much as he did, maybe she missed him as much as he missed her.

"Uhm..." Troy's heart sank as he realized she was trying to remember his name, "he was the captain of the basketball team, we met on new years, we sang together in the musical, he won two championship games..." she rambled off random facts about him.

"And his name?" the host asked her with a laugh. Troy wasn't laughing.

"I couldn't tell you," Gabriella admitted, "I haven't thought about him in years. It started with a T, I know that."

Troy shut off the televison. He was angry and hurt. He didn't know what to do. He knew he didn't love his wife anymore, he had discovered that on their trip to her families beach house in california. He knew that he still loved Gabriella, but now he knew that she didn't love him. One thing he did know was that Gabriella forgetting his name didn't make him love Sharpay again.

For hours the house was filled with the sound of a pen scribbling away on a sheet of paper. Troy had set himself up in the study and was now surrounded by balled up pieces of paper. He had been pouring out his thoughts onto the stationairy that Taylor had sent them for Sharpay's birthday last year. The cheery pink colour of the paper couldn't hide what Troy was writing.

"I'm sorry Sharpay," Troy read his own writing aloud, "but I can't do this anymore. I need someone who won't drive me crazy, I need someone who doesn't make me mad. I need someone who thrills me, where the thought of being without them makes me sad. I need someone who I can't wait to spend every second with, someone who every second without is agony. I have to go, and I'm very sorry Sharpay. I need someone that I love, and unfourtunately that isn't you anymore." He stared at the sheet of paper in his hand for a few minutes more, "four hours and that's what I come up with? Well, it'll do," he said before cleaning up the study. He might be leaving his wife but that was no reason to leave things untidy. Maybe the cleaning would make her hate him less.

Each little creak from the stairs made Troy cringe, the thought of Sharpay waking up terrified him. He slipped into his bedroom and placed the note on the dresser. In agonizing silence he packed a few things into a suitcase. A couple of changes of clothes and his toothbrush were the only things that he could think of taking with him. It took him nearly a half hour to pack, he was moving slowly so as not to wake the woman that was asleep in his bed.

Once his suitcase was fully packed he placed his note on the bed next to Sharpay. He slipped his wedding ring off of his finger and put it down with the note. He wouldn't need it anymore, and she had bought it for him. After one last look at a woman who would surely hate him in the morning, he wheeled his suitcase out of the room and out to his car.

Twenty minutes later Troy found himself standing outside the door of an apartment. He raised his hand to knock, but hesistated. There was no doubt that he had done the right thing, it wasn't fair to him or Sharpay to stay in a loveless marriage, but he wasn't sure if coming here was the right plan. When he realized that it was either knock or sleep in the hallway he loudly banged on the door. He stood quietly, waiting for an answer, but after a few minutes he knocked again.

"What the hell?" Troy could hear from the other side of the door. The door swung open to reveal a very tired, and angry, Chad. Troy could see Taylor standing in the doorway of the bedroom. "Troy?" Chad asked him, he seemed confused, "what the hell are you doing here at 5 in the morning?"

"I left Sharpay." Troy said, as he walked past a very shocked Chad. He made his way over to the couch. "Is it okay if I stay here for awhile? Just until I can find a place of my own?"

Chad simply nodded, still not aware of what was going on.


	3. No You Don't

**It's -35 here in Calgary, which has caused the pipes in my apartment to freeze. On top of that my car wouldn't start this morning, so I had to call my parents to drive me to work. It was probably for the best, though. I nearly slammed into a street light yesterday - don't drive a sports car in the winter! It's a bad idea. All of this led to me deleting the rather sappy chapter "We Live For Love," and replacing it with "No You Don't."**

**Now that we're three chapters in, did anyone notice that the chapters are named after the songs from the album "In the Heat of the Night"? No? Does anyone here listen to Benatar? Does anyone know who Pat Benatar is? Of course you do. We've all played guitar hero.**

**Disclaimage: If I owned High School Musical I wouldn't live in an apartment with frozen pipes.**

* * *

Troy was woken up from his sleep by a loud banging on the front door. He threw off the blanket that was covering him and got up from the couch that he spent the night on. His body ached as he walked towards the door, where someone was still knocking. Whomever was on the otherside really wanted in, they were pounding on the door with all of their might, and from the sound of it they wouldn't stop until someone let them in.

"Hold on!" Troy yelled as he reached for the doorknob. He opened the door and instantly regretted it as he felt someone slap him across the face, "Shar?" he asked his wife, "what are you doing here?"

"What the hell, Troy!?" Sharpay yelled before slapping him again, "What is this!?" She waved his letter infront of his face.

"How did you find me?" Troy asked as he rubbed his face. He had forgotten how hard Sharpay could hit.

"How did I find you!? Who else is going to take you in!?" Sharpay forced herself into Chad and Taylor's apartment, although Troy did little to stop her. He had already been slapped twice. "How stupid do you think I am, Troy!? Chad is your only friend who still lives in Albuquerque! It doesn't take a genius to figure out where you went!"

"Okay, that's one question answered. That still leaves the question of why your here," Troy pointed out.

"Why am I here? Why am I here!? Why do you think I'm here!? You left me in a note!" Sharpay would have probably continued if it weren't for the sound of Taylor and Chad's bedroom door opening.

"What's going on here?" A confused Taylor asked.

"I'm yelling at my fucking soon-to-be-ex-husband! That's what!" Sharpay snapped.

"Oh," Taylor replied with shock, "Well. We'll, uh, be in here if you need us," she nervously backed into her room.

"A note, Troy?" Sharpay's voice had suddenly dropped, she was speaking quietly, "how could you leave me in a note?" she sank down onto the couch that Troy had been sleeping on, a single tear rolling down her cheek.

"I'm sorry, Shar," Troy said as he sat down beside her, "I should've told you some other way. I took the cowards way out."

"You're damn right you did!" Sharpay yelled, "don't you respect me at all!?" Her anger was back in full force, and she was once again ready to kill him.

"Of course I respect you, Shar. I know that this note doesn't show it, but I really do! Other than this what would make you think that I didn't?" Troy knew that he hadn't made the best decision with the note, but he did feel a bit hurt that she didn't think he respected her anymore.

"When," Sharpay started to yell but her voice cracked, and she began to sob, "when you cheated on me!" She leaned into him and continued to cry into his chest.

"I've never cheated on you, Shar! I can promise you that!" Troy told his former lover. Sharpay pulled away from him and looked him in the eye.

"Do not lie to me Troy, not anymore. I get that you don't love me, but don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying!" Troy said angrily. He knew that he had done things to make her angry at him, but he felt betrayed that she would think that.

"I know that you are, Troy! I'm not stupid!" Sharpay replied, trying to contain her rage.

"When do you imagine that I cheated on you?' Troy asked her.

"On the way back from my parents beach house! That's when! I woke up in the middle of the night and you were gone, then you try to sneak back into bed at six in the morning smelling like cigarettes and cheap perfume!" Sharpay yelled back, before slumping back down on the couch, avoiding looking him in the eye.

Troy opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it. He looked at her with pain in his eyes, unsure of what to do to try and make this situation right. "You have no come back for that, Troy? No excuse? No lame attempt to cover up the fact that you left me late at night to go bang some random chick?" Sharpay asked, holding back her tears.

"I didn't cheat on you, Shar, I really didn't,"

"You actually expect me to believe that. I was stupid enough to believe that you loved me, but there is no way that I'm stupid enough to believe that." Sharpay laughed a little.

"I didn't Shar. I had the oppurtunity, but I didn't," Troy told her, his anger just barely held in.

"You didn't? Really? I can forgive you for the letter now. Come back to me Troy!" Sharpay held his arm tightly and looked at him with hope before rolling her eyes and turning away.

"You always have to be a drama queen, don't you?" Troy muttered.

"Repeat?" Sharpay turned to glare at him.

"Just like that! Most people say 'What?' or 'excuse me?' but no, you always have to be so god damn dramatic!" Troy was no longer trying to hide his anger.

"Troy, you up and left me for no reason. You don't get to be mad at me," Sharpay angrily pointed her finger at Troy.

"It wasn't 'no reason'!" Troy said as he pushed her finger away, "You always had to be in control! Always had to get things your way! I didn't even get to choose my own career! You had it picked out for me before we were even married."

"I gave us a dream life, a good home, stable job, and everything that we could ever want!"

"Yeah, I always wanted to grow up to work with statistical analysis," Troy replied sarcastically.

"Uh huh, and I was the only thing holding you back from being a basketball playing astronaut." Sharpay replied with the same sarcastic tone.

"See, this is why I never told you about this before! If something doesn't go your way you freak out! You've never grown up, Sharpay," he finally let her know what he had been thinking for awhile.

"And hurting me like this is something grown up? You couldn't have said it to my face?" Sharpay said, once again waving the letter at him.

"I told you before, I was a coward. I'm sorry," Troy replied, snatching the letter away.

"I know your a coward. You could only tell me you hate me when you thought I was asleep." Sharpay whispered.

"I'm sorry," was all that Troy could say.

"Sorry? You think that will change anything? I love you Troy! And I thought you loved me too, apparently I was wrong." Sharpay stood up from her seat on the couch and headed towards the door. Troy jumped up off the couch and grabbed her arm, holding her back.

"Shar," He began.

"Sharpay," she told him sternly.

"Sharpay, I'm so sorry. If I could go back and change things,"

"No more Troy," she cut him off, "I just came to say that you're an ass, and that even though I still love you, I hate you. I really do hate you, Troy Bolton." She pulled her arm out from his grasp and walked over to the door. As she stood in the doorway she turned to give him one last look.

"Goodbye, Troy," she whispered before pulling the door closed behind her.

"Goodbye, Sharpay," Troy whispered to himself.

* * *

**After writing that all that I can say is this:**

**Exclamation points are fun!**

**I'm a strange sort of person…**

**Also, dialouge and I aren't the best of friends. We're get along fine, don't get me wrong. We can work together and we sort of have an understanding of what the other wants from us, but I don't expected to be invited to it's wedding. Which is a shame. I hear it and punctuation have a really good caterer.**


	4. My Clone Sleeps Alone

**So here we are, what was probably the hardest chapter to write. Not because of the plot or anything. I already had that figured out. It was just hard to figure out how to write a chapter called "My Clone Sleeps Alone". You should all listen to the song. It's weird.**

* * *

The soft moonlight barely lit the hills just outside of the Lava Springs country club. The pale blue glow gave everything a dream like feeling, and the figure standing infront of Troy made it seem like the entire world had just dissappeared. To him it felt like the pair were the only thing around for miles, even the clubs main building seemed to vanish from his sight. He had everything just the way he wanted it. The love of his life was there, waiting for him, but as he took a step closer she turned away.

"Gabriella?" he asked, taking another step forwards. She too took a step, a step away from him. Troy took yet another step, and once again she moved away. Unwilling to play games with the girl he had fought so hard for Troy lunged forwards and grabbed her arm, spinning her to look him in the eye. But her eyes were closed, she refused to look at him.

"I'm already in love," she stated. She said it like it was nothing, like she was telling him that her favourite colour was red. Her eyes were still closed as she brushed past him and began to walk down the hill. "I can't love you too," she said while walking down the hill, "It's against the rules."

Confusion set in as Troy raced towards her, but she seemed to be keeping her distance despite her slow pace. He didn't care if she was married, or if she loved what's-his-name. The rules could be damned, he needed her. But every time he got close she was suddenly out of his reach. He paused for a moment when he saw another person approaching.

Troy could feel his heart break as he watched the shadowy figure lean down to kiss his Gabriella. He was about to turn and leave when he saw the figure pull her in even closer. Even though he saw her reach up and run her fingers through his shaggy brown hair, even though he knew she was happy, he couldn't let it happen. His blood was boiling, he had to stop what he was watching.

Troy ran down the hill as fast as he could, this time the distance didn't seem that far. When he reached the couple he forced them apart, knocking Gabriella to the ground in the process. He didn't even notice her sitting on the ground, all of his attention was on whoever was kissing his girl. Whomever it was had turned away from him, hiding his face.

"Hey!" Troy yelled at the man, "look at me!"

"You need to control him," Troy heard Gabriella say as she stood up, "I've got mine under control. It's all because you tried to let him have a life."

"You're right," the man said. He turned to look at Gabriella, and it was then that Troy got to see the face of the man that was kissing his love. Troy's eyes went wide when he saw his own face looking back at him. Troy stood and stared as the man that looked just like him took Gabriella by the hand and led her away. Troy's double glanced back at him and shook his head, "from now on my clone sleeps alone,"

Troy woke up with a gasp. It had been the same dream for the past two weeks. He sighed and laid his head back down. It was the dream that had led him to his current location. After three days of waking up on Chad and Taylor's couch Troy had decided that he needed to find Gabriella. The first step seemed somewhat obvious to him - find someone that could get him in touch with her. Which was how he ended up in LA, knocking on the door of a very nice house tucked away in the hollywood hills.

The short woman who answered the door was clearly very surprised to see him, but quickly wrapped him in a tight hug before grabbing his hand and leading him into the house. Troy spent the next hour explaining, in detail, to Kelsi what had happened to him. He told her how he had been upset with Sharpay for awhile, how he had nearly cheated on her (which earned him a slap on the arm from Kelsi), how he decided that he still loved Gabriella, and how he left his wife in a note and left his best friend behind in Albuquerque as he tried to find his high school sweetheart.

It took Kelsi awhile to digest all the information, but after a few minutes of tense silence she agreed to help him. But, she would only help him on one condition. That condition wasn't revealed to him, however, as Jason happened to arrive home at that moment. Troy had made Kelsi promise not to tell Jason. Jason and Zeke had always been very close, so even though Jason and Troy remained friends after he started dating Sharpay the relationship had become somewhat strained.

One could never tell that the relationship had ever had a problem, though. As soon as Jason saw his old basketball captain he rushed over and gave him a hug. Not one of those one-armed manly hugs, no this was a I've-missed-you-more-than-life hugs. It took two hours for Troy to tell Jason everything that he could. He didn't mention that he was looking for Gabriella, just that he had seperated from Sharpay and needed to get away from New Mexico. Jason's eyes let Troy know that he knew he was hiding something, but Jason didn't press it.

And so Troy ended up living in the guest room at Jason and Kelsi's. Despite all the pressure that he was putting on Kelsi she refused to bring Gabriella over until she had things just the way she wanted. Troy was unsure what the tiny songwriter was up to, but she seemed to spend long hours on the phone everyday trying to work something out.

This morning was the day that things finally started to progress for Troy. When he made his way from the guest room to the kitchen he found Kelsi sipping her coffee and reading the paper.

"Morning, Kels. Jason leave for work already?" He asked as he poured himself a glass.

"Yup," she said without looking away from the paper, "He decided he needed to reshoot a scene. He said it wasn't 'enough', whatever that means. You win the Sundance film festival one time and suddenly you start to doubt everything you do..." she trailed off as she took another sip of her coffee.

"In high school if you had told me one day Jason Cross would be making films about a pastor that's addicted to herion I would've laughed in your face. But here we are," Troy replied with a smile.

"Yeah, here we are. Four years since graduation and things are so different. Jay is artistic, Gabby isn't afraid to sing infront of millions, Zeke is the basketball superstar," Kelsi finally looked up from her paper, "and you're the one that's going to explain everything that's happened to your life to him."

"To who?" Troy asked, confused.

"Zeke, you idiot," Kelsi shook her head and went to look back at the paper, but it was snatched away from her.

"Why am I talking to Zeke?" Troy asked as he threw the paper behind him, "I tried talking to him four years ago and he wouldn't listen. I tried talking to when I saw him at your wedding, and he wouldn't even look at me! I tried to invite him to my wedding and I didn't even get a reply! He doesn't want to listen to me!"

"He might not want to. But he'll be here in about an hour. You may want to prepare something to say." Kelsi stood up from the table and placed her coffee cup in the sink. She gave Troy a little smile as she picked up the paper from the floor and threw it in the trash. "And after you talk to Zeke I'll give Gabs a call. I can't promise she'll come, but I'll call." With that Kelsi walked out of the kitchen.

Troy sat in silence for a few minutes, thoughts racing through his head. At one point in time Zeke was one of his best friends, but they hadn't talked in years. Troy wasn't even sure what to say. Should he tell him that he left Sharpay? How would Zeke react to finding out that the Troy didn't love her, and that Troy had thrown away their friendship for nothing? What could they possibly talk about?

"You had better be worth this Gabriella," Troy thought out loud. But somehow he knew she would be.


	5. We Live For Love

**I bought a car yesterday. I pick it up on friday. It's a nice shiny '08 Chevy Cobalt - but it means that I have sell my '97 Mustang. The thought of all the money I've spent and the fact that I have to give up my sports car kept me up all night. That's when I wrote this. Yeah.**

* * *

Awkward. That was the only way to describe the feeling in the room. A friend of Troy's had once told him that situations would only be awkward if you let them. He found himself truly doubting that as he sat an a rather stylish, yet uncomfortable, couch trying not to look at the basketball player sitting across from him on the matching oddly lumpy couch. Kelsi was sitting on the same uncomfortable couch as Zeke, doing her best to try and start a conversation. Despite her best efforts, though, neither man seemed to be willing to talk.

"So," Kelsi said with a heavy sigh, "did anyone see that new Paris Hilton movie?" Both men looked at her with confused looks, "No? Me neither," she said with a shrug. Once again the room lapsed into heavy silence. Time seemed to tick by painfully slow, with each person in the room taking turns sighing loudly.

The awkward silence was broken by the phone ringing, "I'll get that," Kelsi said as she stood up, "you two just keep on... staring at the coffee table." With that she got up and left. Out of the corner of his eye Troy noticed that she had her cellphone open and tucked in her pocket. No doubt it was her way of sneaking away from what would have to be the most awkward reunion she had ever set up.

The silence continued on for another minute before Troy took a deep breath and went to say something to Zeke. However, when he looked up from the coffee table he jumped when he saw Zeke staring at him. There was a glint in Zeke's eyes that Troy just couldn't place. Zeke had changed so much since college that Troy wasn't able to read him anymore, but the intense look scared him.

"You're going to kill me, aren't you?" Troy asked his old friend seriously.

Zeke's expression wavered for a moment before he burst out laughing. It was a deep laugh that Troy hadn't heard for years, and if it had been any other situation he probably would've been happy that he was hearing it. Right now he was a little scared that Zeke had gone crazy and was actually going to kill him. He couldn't get the image of Zeke suddenly becoming serious again and lunging across the table at him out of his brain. But Zeke didn't get serious, and he didn't lunge across the table. Instead his laughter intensified.

"So," Troy said hesistantly, "you aren't going to kill me?"

"No," Zeke replied as he wiped a tear away from his eye, "I'm not going to kill you. Why would you think that?" He was still laughing.

"Because I stole the girl of your dreams away from you?"

"Dude," Zeke said as he got up off his uncomfortable couch to sit next to Troy, "that was four years ago. Do you really think that I'm still upset about that. She liked you and not me. I took it too seriously." Troy was left shocked. He had spent four years thinking that his friend hated him, and from the way that Kelsi had acted she thought the exact same thing. How could they both have been so wrong?

"Why didn't ever call? Or come to my wedding?" Troy asked Zeke.

"I hated you," Zeke replied matter-of-factly. Troy felt like his head was about to explode. Zeke wasn't mad at him anymore, but he hated him at the time of his wedding. How could someone hate someone else for two years and then one day just be okay with it? "I really did hate you, for a long time," Zeke explained, "but then I met someone and they told me something that really hit me." Zeke paused to take a sip of the tea that Kelsi had brought out earlier. He set down his cup and stared at Troy.

"What?" Troy finally asked.

"Human nature drives us to find someone to be with," he took another sip of his tea, "essentially, we live for love."

"We live for love?"

"Yeah. Given that you left Shar I'm going to guess that it wasn't really love," Troy made a mental note to kill Kelsi for telling Zeke, "she was just filling a void. You were missing the love that you got from Gabriella and Shar was willing to give you that love."

"When did you get so deep?" Troy asked his friend with a laugh.

"I spent my first 8 games sitting on the bench," Zeke replied, "I had some time to think."

"You'd probably still be on the bench if it wasn't for that kid," Kelsi said with a giggle as she came back into the room. Troy got the feeling that she had been standing in the kitchen listening to their conversation.

"What kid?" Troy asked with confusion.

"You don't know?" Zeke replied, blushing.

"I did my best not to follow your career."

"Some kid threw his coke at him the first time he played. After doing the interview circuit about it the team seemed to just want him to play all the time. Good publicity, I guess."

"That sucks man," Troy said through his laughter.

"Eh. I'm rich and famous now," Zeke replied with a shrug. A cocky grin had replaced the blushing.

"But," Troy said with a nervous laugh "We're good?"

"We're good." Zeke replied before pulling his former captain into a hug. Troy was so happy that he didn't hear Jason come in, nor did he hear Jason clear his throat. He only took notice of his friend when he threw a magazine at him.

"No man love on my couch!"

* * *

That was short, wasn't it?

I thought about making it longer, but I didn't feel it was neccessary. It had been four years, Zeke would have to be over it. And for once, something good had to happen to Troy. I couldn't let terrible thing after terrible thing happen to him. I like him.

He probably hates me though.


End file.
